Why does my CentOS logrotate run at random times?

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The key is knowing that CentOS runs the scripts in /etc/cron.{daily,weekly,monthly} from anacron… /etc/anacrontab is setting RANDOM_DELAY, which does what you might expect (it delays up to RANDOM_DELAY minutes before starting the job)…

# /etc/anacrontab: configuration file for anacron

# See anacron(8) and anacrontab(5) for details.

SHELL=/bin/sh
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root
# the maximal random delay added to the base delay of the jobs
RANDOM_DELAY=45
# the jobs will be started during the following hours only
START_HOURS_RANGE=3-22

#period in days   delay in minutes   job-identifier   command
1       5       cron.daily              nice run-parts /etc/cron.daily
7       25      cron.weekly             nice run-parts /etc/cron.weekly
@monthly 45     cron.monthly            nice run-parts /etc/cron.monthly

Setting RANDOM_DELAY=0 / START_HOURS_RANGE=3 fixed the problem…

EDIT

After further thought, I am going to remove anacron and install normal vixie cron…

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